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Oil, hurricanes, and gators, oh my!

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Hi y'all, I'm Phaedrus and I'm from New Orleans, Louisiana. I recently started my first tank (that I've had active involvement in) and am searching around for a forum that isn't half dead/impersonal. Maybe this is it, who knows? ;)

My tank's been pretty troubled since my step-dad did no research on the cycle, just said "We need to build water quality. Let's throw a bunch of cheap fish in there" so he got eight gourami and a rainbow shark and threw them in there. Naturally ammonia went through the roof, the fish lost color, we had to do 50% water changes every day, and we finally added a bacterial product and that pushed us through the cycle and we managed to not lose any fish.

Our tank is a 46ga freshwater and we currently have eight three-spot gourami, a rainbow shark, and nine black neon tetras. We're returning some of those gourami today. When we bought them (six weeks ago) we didn't do any research, and now we know that they'll get up to five inches, which will overcrowd the tank. Plus they eat 90% of the food, leaving not much for the others. So we're going to keep just three.

We're hoping to keep a diverse and compatible tropical community tank with a good variety of species and colors that will take moderate care to keep happy and healthy. The final plan for the inhabitants:
1x Opalescent Gourami (male)
2x Blue Gourami (female)
1x Rainbow Shark
9x Black Neon Tetras
3x Corydoras (not sure what variety yet)
2x Bristlenose Catfish
Plus a handful of live plants; elodea and a variety of grass that I don't know the species name of.

I've got a lot of questions; starting with why in the world my API test kit is giving completely whacked out results for nitrites compared to two other test kits. I'll make a thread on that later.

yeah start doing some 50% water changes daily or plant the pants out of it.

bad luck on the test kit bud, you will be fine though, have a read of the free e-book it will help a'lot and ask as many questions as you need to, there are an awful lot of knowledgeable people on here who are always willing to help you out

good luck with the cycling

16 tanks and counting

The more i look at your tank the more i want your tank in my tank!Chris